Best-practices, Guidelines and Vision from the Enterprise PLM think-tank at Oracle

Wednesday Mar 04, 2015

Businesses still struggle with product innovation, too often
missing the market or launching the wrong product. 76% of companies view
product innovation as a key strategic business priority, but 90% of them
admitted they are slow to market and often over-budget.

It’s time to make innovation your core competence and fuel
your innovation pipeline with a winning portfolio of offerings. Oracle
Innovation Management Cloud can help you better decide which ideas to select
and convert into products, improving your profitability and returns.

Join one of the upcoming webcasts to see how Oracle
Innovation Management Cloud can help you optimize your portfolio, drive
top-line revenue growth, and innovate at lightning speed.

Friday Feb 13, 2015

Struggling to make product innovation happen effectively? Too often businesses miss the market, launch the wrong product, run behind schedule or go over budget. Executives say this is unacceptable in a time when lifecycles are already so short, customer sentiment is publicly visible, and competition is growing globally. Delivering high quality, innovative products is more important than ever.

Monday Dec 08, 2014

Every company that wants to grow and thrive relies on valuable new products to attract new customers, delight existing ones, and boost revenue. There is just one small problem: Innovating, developing, and commercializing new products is not an easy process, but it’s critical to compete effectively.

Roadblocks pop up constantly. During development, information gets lost or neglected in email, spreadsheets, and disconnected systems. You end up wasting time searching for and updating it all while trying to keep multiple logins and passwords straight.

Meanwhile, the pressure from external forces doesn't let up. You have new technology and regulations to manage, competitors to keep an eye on, and customers who are....

Thursday Nov 06, 2014

No matter what industry you’re in, competition is heating up. Everyone wants to bring The Next Big Thing to market before you, from startups that are still flying under the radar to the industry leader who intends to hold onto that #1 position.

Meanwhile, your team is scrambling to innovate, develop, and commercialize new products quickly, but they’re running into multiple roadblocks that are slowing the entire product value chain process down.

Wednesday Oct 01, 2014

Oracle OpenWorld 2014 is in full swing this week, and there’s
some exciting news for the PLM community coming out today – Oracle announced
new Oracle Product Value Chain Cloud solutions, including Oracle Innovation
Management Cloud and our first PLM cloud application called Oracle Product
Development Cloud.These new solutions
work together with Oracle Product Hub and Oracle Project Portfolio Management
to provide a collaborative, connected, and disciplined approach to manage the
entire value chain.

That means you get faster, more cost-effective access to an integrated
innovation, development and commercialization solution than ever before, with
the security, connectivity and personalization benefits of the Oracle Cloud!

Too often organizations have to search for product data lost
among disconnected systems.Even those
with formal PLM systems in place find that traditional systems start too late
and end too early. The selection of new ideas gets left to Excel or dead-end
niche applications, and the later manufacturing and commercialization processes
neglect to follow through to ensure the right product and corresponding information
makes it to the customer as intended.

The future of product development is here.Given today’s complex challenges, companies
need a faster, more nimble approach to seamlessly track its next star product
from its origins among thousands of ideas through to market readiness.Consumer tech-inspired interfaces, mobile
apps and embedded analytics are pervasive.Technology everywhere is evolving, and that’s having resounding impacts
on business.There’s an imperative on us
all to re-imagine what that means for our products and the way we get them to
market.The Oracle Product Value Chain
Cloud solutions provide a more connected approach, enabling organizations to
improve top-line and bottom-line results.

Also wondering about Agile PLM and PLM for Process
applications?We’re glad you asked,
because we’re just as excited about all the new enhancements and rich future
plans.This week there are three
sessions devoted to vision, release overview and roadmaps, among several deeper
dive sessions. OpenWorld presentations
will be available soon, but if you want to hear it all firsthand, register for the upcoming Oracle Value
Chain Summit Jan 26-28, 2015 in San Jose, CA.

It is an exciting time to be a part of the Oracle PLM community!We are committed to helping organizations optimize
the entire value chain on-premise, hosted, and in the cloud.Backed by years of development and a lasting dedication
to making our customers successful, we are ready to help you grow revenue
and modernize your application landscape.Where do you see the future of your business?

Wednesday Aug 27, 2014

How do you make innovation happen at your organization?
If whiteboards, spreadsheets, point solutions or complicated systems are involved, you'll want to watch this new video! See how Oracle Innovation Management can make it easier to know which ideas to pursue. Remove guesswork and turn innovation into a structured, consistent and effective business process. Become an innovation hero! Watch in HD for supreme viewing experience, and learn how you can build your innovation discipline into a scaleable, repeatable, and strategic business process.

Friday Aug 01, 2014

We’re living and working in the 21st century
marketplace, where innovation has become the engine of growth. Although innovation is generally perceived as a
good thing, it means change which can be difficult for people to accept or
act upon.That means that making
innovation happen still boils down to being an effective leader of people, one who
inspires a vision and lays a path to get there.

Companies have developed sophisticated marketing and
sales processes to help customers
embrace innovation. Think of all the personalized emails, social outreach,
customer reviews, product comparison charts, and mobile apps you’ve
encountered.But those companies who are
getting really good at innovation aren’t just helping their customers embrace
innovation, they’re helping their employees
be innovative too.

Helping employees embrace being innovative has its advantages.In a March 2012 article... [Read More]

Monday Jul 07, 2014

It’s July and as the temperatures rise here in the US, I’m
looking forward to summertime cook-outs, vacations, and sipping a cool beverage
poolside.Summer is my favorite season,
so every Spring I enjoy the anticipation by trying my hand at gardening.But looking in the backyard now, while all my
neighbors’ gardens are flourishing, mine only shows a handful of green tomatoes,
unhealthy squash, and fist-sized watermelons.This happened last year,
too.After all that springtime effort
and investment, this is maddening!

My Fruit &
Vegetable Development Problem

My garden can be described with one word: meh. My frustration reminds me of the challenges
that product development executives share with us in early meetings – unable to
achieve their expected return, inconsistent product information, can’t produce
the final product on time nor on budget, not sure what caused defects, no way
to tell if a project is bad and needs refocusing or abandoning, and so on.

Tuesday Apr 22, 2014

Depending
on severity, product compliance issues can cause all sorts of problems from
run-away budgets to business closures. But effective policies and safeguards
can create a strong foundation that promotes innovation rather than stifle
it.The right solution for your business
should foster productivity, market penetration and competitive advantage. If
you’ve been putting off a systematic approach to product compliance, today’s
increasingly regulated market has made now an important time to reconsider
that decision, or indecision.

Why now?
No matter what industry, companies face a litany of worldwide and regional
regulations that require proof of product compliance and environmental
friendliness for market access. For many companies in
several industries, complying with the changing Conflict
Minerals Law is...

Tuesday Apr 08, 2014

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to sit down with our
resident expert on Innovation Management, Gayle Hayes.I picked her brain on what’s going on in the world
of product and service innovation and how Oracle is helping.A new phenomenon is sweeping product
development – thanks to an explosion of ideation tools and techniques such as
crowd-sourcing, big data, mashups, customer immersion labs, etc, finding ideas
is not the problem.With so many to
choose from, the biggest questions are now “which
idea?” and subsequently, “how do you translate
the right idea into a profitable product?"

This is precisely the challenge the new Oracle Innovation
Management is designed to address.To
learn more about the idea glut and how the new solution helps organizations
improve return on innovation investments, read the transcript of our discussion
below or stream our podcast.You can
even find us on iTunes!

Tuesday Nov 26, 2013

You’ve been asking about it and now it’s nearly here!I’m excited to give you the low-down on what’s
happening with Agile PLM related activities at the upcoming Oracle Value Chain
Summit 2014 (and also about writing my first blog article as Kerrie Jordan!)

First of all, what is it?The Value Chain Summit held February 3-5, 2014 at the newly renovated McEnery Convention Center (check out these cool videos of the revitalized venue) in San Jose, California,
is the top Oracle supply chain and product value chain event of the year, and
the most effective way to build your team’s knowledge, network, and excitement. In the Product Value Chain tracks we're welcoming speakers from industry leaders including Motorola Solutions, Hologic, and NBTY (we'll be announcing more soon but wanted to give you a taste). This year's theme is Empowering the Modern Value Chain, as we're inviting you to explore with us a variety of the latest issues in supply chain such as the cloud, social innovation, in-memory applications, big data, internet of things and new mobile use cases.

Why would you come?If
you’re taking a fresh look at your product-related processes and searching for
the right learning opportunity, this conference is for you. Maybe you miss seeing fellow Agile users, feel nostalgic for AGILITY, or want to challenge your dedicated Agile PLM team here at Oracle with your toughest questions.Whatever your interest in PLM, there's something for you at OVCS. There will be many familiar faces
and new ones so register now if you haven’t yet.The Early Bird Registration rate is $495, and
we’ve extended the deadline to December 20.Now let’s get into the details…

Customize Your Experience at the Value Chain Summit

The Oracle Value Chain Summit brings together more than
1,000 business professionals to learn how smart companies are transforming
their supply chains into information-driven value chains.This unparalleled experience will give you
the tools you need to drive innovation and maximize revenue, whatever your
organizational goals. Choose from more than 200 sessions covering every aspect
of supply chain management: Product Value Chain, Procurement, Maintenance,
Manufacturing, Value Chain Execution, and Value Chain Planning.

Our headlining Keynote Speaker is Geoffrey Moore, renowned
author, speaker and business advisor to many leading companies and an
inspiration to many of us in the Product Lifecycle Management discipline.More speakers will be announced on the event
website in the next few days.

Product Value Chain Solution Area

The Product Value Chain Solution Area is where you’ll find
the Agile PLM, Agile PLM for Process, Product Hub, and AutoVue
sessions, as well as learn about our upcoming release of Oracle Innovation Management.This area features four tracks
of sessions, hands-on workshops, and solution demonstrations followed by
industry groups for more focused discussion.We’ll have four general sessions throughout Tuesday and Wednesday featuring
inspiring industry speakers.We will be
releasing Agile PLM, PIM, Process, and AutoVue customer speaker names, partners and an agenda on the event website in the next
few days.

Track: Product Insights & Best Practices. This track provides executive attendees and line of business
managers with an overview of how customers leverage Agile PLM to enable
critical product-related business processes to achieve value.

Track: Product Deep Dives & Demos. This track delivers line of business and IT managers a
better understanding of the benefits associated with expanding your Agile PLM
footprint. Sessions delve into some of the most inspiring use cases.

Track: Administration & Integration. This track features sessions for Agile administrators,
managers and daily Agile PLM users who are preparing to upgrade or looking to
extend the use of their current PLM implementation. Sessions include deeper
conversations about features and successfully managing the full infrastructure.

Track: PLM for Process and Product Information Management
(PIM). This track provides the opportunity to learn about Oracle’s
Agile PLM for Process solution tailored for process industries, as well as PIM
solutions such as Oracle Product Hub and Enterprise Data Quality for improving the integrity of data enterprise-wide.

Industry-Focused Sessions for PLM Use Cases. During the last sessions on Wednesday, attendees meet in industry
focus groups to facilitate deeper discussion of key issues in High Tech, Life
Sciences, Industrial Manufacturing, and Consumer Goods.

A New Era of Supply Chain Experience

This year we’re very excited to offer new networking and
hands-on learning opportunities.Check
out the VCS User Experience Area where you can test drive demos of the latest
products on iPads.Enjoy lunch with
like-minded professionals during Birds of a Feather discussion tables. Hear about the latest advances in In-Memory Applications, and learn from 120 experienced sponsoring partners. We’re
doing all we can to make this year’s event is the most valuable conference you’ll
visit in 2014.Please register and I’ll
see you in San Jose!

Tuesday Nov 20, 2012

"The
Business of Winning Innovation” is a series of articles authored by Oracle
Agile PLM experts on what it takes to make innovation a successful and
lucrative competitive advantage. Our
customers have proven Agile PLM applications to be enormously flexible and comprehensive,
so we’ve launched this article series to showcase some of the most fascinating,
value-packed use cases.

In
this article by Keith Colonna, we kick-off
the series by taking a look at the science side of innovation within the
Consumer Products industry and how PLM can help companies innovate faster,
cheaper, smarter. This article will review how innovation has become the lifeline
for growth within consumer products companies and how certain companies are “winning”
by creating a competitive advantage for themselves by taking a more
enterprise-wide,systematic approach to “innovation”.

Managing
the Science of Innovation within the Consumer Products Industry

By: Keith Colonna, Value Chain Solution Manager,
Oracle

The consumer products (CP) industry is very mature and
competitive. Most companies within this industry have saturated North America (NA)
with their products thus maximizing their NA growth potential. Future growth is
expected to come from either expansion outside of North America and/or by way
of new ideas and products. Innovation plays an integral role in both of these
strategies, whether you’re innovating business processes or the products
themselves, and may cause several challenges for the typical CP company,

Becoming more innovative is both an art and a science. Most
CP companies are very good at the art of coming up with new innovative ideas,
but many struggle with perfecting the science aspect that involves the best
practice processes that help companies quickly turn ideas into sellable
products and services.

Symptoms
and Causes of Business Pain

Struggles associated with the
science of innovation show up in a variety of ways, like:

·Establishing and storing innovative product ideas
and data

·Funneling these ideas to the chosen few

·Time to market cycle time and on-time launch
rates

·Success rates, or how often the best idea
gets chosen

·Imperfect decision making (i.e. the ability
to kill projects that are not projected to be winners)

·Achieving financial goals

·Return on R&D investment

·Communicating internally and externally as
more outsource partners are added globally

·Knowing your new product pipeline and project status

These challenges (and
others) can be consolidated into three root causes:

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions are uniquely
designed to help companies solve these types challenges and their root causes. However, PLM solutions can vary widely in
terms of configurability, functionality, time-to-value, etc. Business leaders should evaluate PLM solution
in terms of their own business drivers and long-term vision to determine the
right fit. Many of these solutions are
point solutions that can help you cure only one or two business pains in the
short term. Others have been designed to serve other industries with different
needs. Then there are those solutions
that demo well but are owned by companies that are either unable or unwilling
to continuously improve their solution to stay abreast of the ever changing
needs of the CP industry to grow through innovation.

What
the Right PLM Solution Should Do for You

Based on more than twenty years working in the CP
industry, I recommend investing in a single solution that can help you solve
all of the issues associated with the science of innovation in a totally
integrated fashion. By integration I mean the (1) integration of the all of the
processes associated with the development, maintenance and delivery of your
product data, and (2) the integration, or harmonization of this product data
with other downstream sources, like ERP, product catalogues and the GS1 Global
Data Synchronization Network (or GDSN, which is now a CP industry requirement
for doing business with most retailers).

The right PLM solution should help you:

Increase
Revenue. A best practice PLM solution should help
a company grow its revenues by consolidating product development
cycle-time and helping companies get new and improved products to market
sooner. PLM should also eliminate many of the root causes for a product
being returned, refused and/or reclaimed (which takes away from top-line
growth) by creating an enterprise-wide, collaborative, workflow-driven
environment.

Reduce
Costs. A strong PLM solution should help shave many unnecessary
costs that companies typically take for granted. Rationalizing SKU’s,
components (ingredients and packaging) and suppliers is a major
opportunity at most companies that PLM should help address. A natural
outcome of this rationalization is lower direct material spend and a reduction
of inventory. Another cost cutting opportunity comes with PLM when it
helps companies avoid certain costs associated with process inefficiencies
that lead to scrap, rework, excess and obsolete inventory, poor end of
life administration, higher cost of quality and regulatory and increased
expediting.

Mitigate
Risk. Risks are
the hardest to quantify but can be the most costly to a company. Food
safety, recalls, line shutdowns, customer dissatisfaction and, worst of
all, the potential tarnishing of your brands are a few of the debilitating
risks that CP companies deal with on a daily basis. These risks are so uniquely severe that
they require an enterprise PLM solution specifically designed for the CP
industry that safeguards product information and processes while still
allowing the art of innovation to flourish.

Many CP companies have already created a winning
advantage by leveraging a single, best practice PLM solution to establish an
enterprise-wide, systematic approach to innovation.

Oracle’s
Answer for the Consumer Products Industry

Oracle is dedicated to solving the growth and innovation
challenges facing the CP industry. Oracle’s Agile Product Lifecycle Management for Process solution was
originally developed with and for CP companies and is driven by a specialized development
staff solely focused on maintaining and continuously improving the solution per
the latest industry requirements. Agile PLM for Process helps CP companies
handle all of the processes associated with managing the science of the
innovation process, including: specification management, new product
development/project and portfolio management, formulation optimization,
supplier management, and quality and regulatory compliance to name a few.

And as I mentioned earlier, integration is absolutely
critical. Many Oracle CP customers, both
with Oracle ERP systems and non-Oracle ERP systems, report benefits from
Oracle’s Agile PLM for Process. In future articles we will explain in greater
detail how both existing Oracle
customers (like Gallo, Smuckers, Land-O-Lakes and Starbucks) and new Oracle customers (like ConAgra,
Tyson, McDonalds and Heinz) have all realized the benefits of Agile PLM for
Process and its integration to their ERP systems.

More
to Come

Stay tuned for more articles in our blog series “The
Business of Winning Innovation.” While we will also feature articles focused on
other industries, look forward to more on how Agile PLM for Process addresses
innovation challenges facing the CP industry. Additional topics include: Innovation Data
Management (IDM), New Product Development (NPD), Product Quality Management
(PQM), Menu Management,Private Label Management, and more! .

Tuesday May 08, 2012

Featuring seven customer case studies and enriched with industry-specific best practices throughout, this Oracle Enterprise PLM Reportis most definitely a “one-stop-shop” for anyone looking for a solid overview of Oracle’s Agile PLM and complementary solutions.

Here’s a brief summary of the almost 30 pages of content:

The Origins: From Agile Software to Oracle

As part of its commitment to providing the most complete, most integrated and most industry-oriented range of applications available, Oracle in 2007 acquired Agile Software Corp., a leading provider of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software solutions worldwide.Since that date, Oracle has extended and further developed its PLM applications portfolio to create the industry’s most comprehensive suite of applications for full, enterprise-scale PLM throughout the product value chain.

The Challenges for Product-Oriented Businesses

From industrial manufacturing to pharmaceuticals and retail, today’s product-oriented industries face a unique set of challenges such as complex design and supply chains, increased global competition, market demand for customized products, economic uncertainty, and industry regulations.To thrive in these conditions, product businesses need to be efficient, agile and innovative while ensuring quality, traceability and safety.But this difficult to achieve for many businesses, which are often plagued by delays and failures due to disjointed and inefficient product development and commercialization processes.

The Oracle Solution

Drawing on our extensive work with product-oriented businesses across multiple industry sectors, Oracle has developed the expertise and the technology solutions to enable a new streamlined approach to managing the product lifecycle: managing the entire product value chain with Enterprise PLM solutions.Enterprise PLM is much more than just a technology solution.It represents a new, strategic approach to the product value chain that emphasizes process efficiency, cross-functional collaboration in the extended enterprise, rapid innovation, rigorous quality control, risk mitigation and cost effectiveness.

The Industries

Recognizing that different industry sectors have unique pressures and concerns, Oracle has developed dedicated Enterprise PLM solutions for a range of industries, including Pharmaceuticals, Medical Devices, Retail, Industrial Manufacturing, High Tech Electronics, Consumer Packaged Goods and Food & Beverage.

Pharmaceuticals: Enabling Business Transformation
With a case study on Bayer Healthcare